Kathrine

A fun read that hits all the right notes for anyone who even remotely considers themselves a marshmallow, made all the better by Kristen Bell being the narrator for the audio version. Plus it's a decent mystery, with some good twists (one of which I didn't see coming until right before it happened).

Once the story got moving, I think I liked it better than The Whole Truth. Enough that I'll probably pick up the next Shaw book when it comes out. Shaw and Frank (who's my favorite character) seemed more fleshed out. I was disappointed that Katie James barely made an appearance until near the end, though I did enjoy Baldacci's wink at the Reacher comparisons many have made with Shaw. I could have done without Reggie. I'm sure she'll be back, if only to annoy me.

Read this way out of order, but it's only a novella and it's a Patterson so I figured it wouldn't much matter. I was right. I haven't read anything else in the Michael Bennett series, but I don't think that had any effect. We meet up with Bennett in between major cases and he does his thing to solve the crime. Like he's supposed do. It's his job after all as both a police detective and the main character of a series of thiller/suspense books. There really wasn't anything to endear me to the character and at less than 150 pages, there really wasn't much to endear me to the actual murder case either. It wasn't terrible, but it's nothing I won't forget in a week or two.

The mystery was adequate. The characters, while not very deep were adequate. The writing was simplistic and adequate. Basically the best word to describe this book: Adequate.